So You Think You Can Dance - Top 20

[arabian]

OMG! It's not a Doctor Who post!!!!

Ahem, so watching SYTYCD and decided to throw my thoughts down while watching.


Jamie & Rayven - They were good, not great, but good. I thought they actually handled the hip-hop moves better than expected though, and I thought he was better than her.

Marquis & Susie - She cleaned up surprisingly well. It was a lovely routine, the lines were gorgeous, but dude, Nigel, that lift was all kinds of obviously messed up. Still, it was clearly a difficult routine and I thought they looked gorgeous. (I threw some votes their way -- even though, I NEVER vote this early, Gerrie!!!)

Kourtni & Matt - I didn't really remember him, but Kourtni was my favorite going into tonight and she did not disappoint. Of course, having Mandy Moore be the one to choreograph them first made me squeal with delight (Neil/Sabra table dance FTW!!!). Good routine, they were well intuned, both in character and executed the choreography cleanly. Niiiiiice. My favorite so far. (I disagree about Matt, that was low, Nigel. You suck, Dan, LOL!)

Hee, Cat being so happy being next to tall people.

Chelsea T & Thayne - She's fabulous, he's kinda forgettable even as I'm watching him. Yikes.

Chelsie H & Mark - I don't know how I felt about this routine. I liked it, I didn't, it was weird, it was off, but I was mesmerized through the whole thing. Ah, Mia. Welcome back. I really liked Mark from his interview, but he didn't grab me during the routine like Chelsie did; I thought she was beautiful, inside and out. Loved her. She was lit from within and it radiated. He was good, but she was splendiferous.

Twitch & Kherington - Yup, Tyce sucks again. Wow, this was the first bad one of the night for me. Talk about no connection. She was so busy playing to the audience; he was so busy playing to the audience that they barely acknowledged each other. It was like watching two dancers on stage dancing different routines and occasionally meeting here and there for a beat or two. She smiles too much and too big, but she IS a great dancer, I'll give her that. Twitch? I expected more charisma from him, ah well. (Just watch, the judges'll love it and wax poetic over their connection and them individually.) <--- Yup.

Comfort & Chris - I expected them to be better. They seemed a tad slow to me and really boring. Ah well. I kinda wanted to love them. (They are adorable together, though. "Everyone, I'm not a tree." "Click-click.")

Katee & Joshua - JORDIN!!!!!!!! I do like Napoleon & Tabitha's choreography a lot. Katee's really good, but yeah, Joshua is just, wow. He's amazing. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I really do agree with what everything Nigel said about the routine and them. Fabulous job.

Jessica & Will - Based on this dance, Jessica really is coming aross as the weakest dancer they have so far this year. There were close-bobbles, seemed just a bit off here and there. And the perma-smile had to go; didnt fit the routine at all. Will was excellent, just excellent.

Courtney G & Gev - GREAT SONG! Okay, now they were the first pair who I actually truly thought had chemistry. I like her; I like him; I like them together ... a lot. Doriana is not my favorite choreographer (I like Maria from last year much more), and this routine mostly showed why I'm not a Doriana fan, but there were some nice moves and I liked how they handled them. I liked them. Good chemistry. They were hot. Hotter than the dance. I'm going to enjoy watching them.

All in all, really, really good crop of dancers in this top 20. The weakest was Jessica and she was still really, really good. The worst I can say about anyone else was that Kherrington smiled too much and Thayne kinda faded next to Chelsea T. Really good crop of dancers (even without Evan ... sniff, sniff, sniff).

Ranking the pairs --

Courtney G & Gev
Chelsie H & Mark
Kourni & Matt
Katee & Joshua
Marquis & Susie
Comfort & Chris
Chelsea T & Thayne
Will & Jessica
Jamie & Rayven
Kherrington & Twitch

Fave dancers --

Gev
Chelsie
Kourtni
Joshua

Bottom three --

Rayven & Jaime
Jessica & Will
Kherrington & Twitch

Honestly, though, none of the dances were weak overall. I personally didn't like the Twitch/Kherington dance, but I think they'll do well. Again, really good crop of dancers. REALLY GOOD!

Comments

My reaction plus a Heroes casting spoiler

[boundaid.livejournal.com]

FAVORITE DANCERS. All agreed except for Joshua. I'd put Comfort in there. I don't really get Joshie poo.

DID YOU HEAR as I'm sure you have that Francis Capra landed a villian role to be like a friend to Kristen Bell's character. So she kind of has a heart? After her foray into Judd Apatow built in audience underperformed with her in it...

Re: My reaction plus a Heroes casting spoiler

[arabian.livejournal.com]

I really do like Comfort's personality, while Joshua's doesn't do anything for me, but I was wowed by his dancing.

Yeah, heard about Heroes. Lame. I just want some Jason news ::pout::

[harper47.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Khortni's dance very much but I still like her. I was a lot harsher than you in my review. Hee! I'm going to blame Matt for Mandy's dance not working. And the costume people. I really hated what they were wearing.

Good review of Twitch's dance. I basically kind of stopped watching it because I was bored. And I'm not riding the TCO train.

[arabian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked it better than you, obviously. I do think Kourtni was better than Matt, but I still liked him and it overall.

I'm not worried about TCO at this point, because it does and can change. David Archuleta was RIDICULOUSLY the chosen one on AI this year, and David Cook won. Sabra was so not TCO until midway through the show last year, and she won. I think we need to wait out a few more weeks before we really can tell if they're sticking with Twitch or not.

[harper47.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Argh. I hate knowning someone in this (hee!) because I keep having the urge to go bash people who are being mean to Marquis. Hee! And they did mess up the lift. But it was the waltz and it was hard and other than that, they did great.

Oh well, hopefully he will nail his solo. If - from what I'm seeing around the web - the bottom 3 seem to be Marquis and Susie, Rayven and Jaimie and Courtney and Gev.

Marquis can easily outdance both those boys. Easily. So . . . . we'll see. We'll just see.

[arabian.livejournal.com]

Right about the lift. Nigel is so on crack; anyone could see the lift was messed up. Boy, he really thinks non-professional dancers are idiots, doesn't he?

Sad about Marquis & Susie and Courtney & Gev, I liked those two a lot. I think of those three -- based on what we've seen and you've said, that Jaime will go home. But who knows?

[harper47.livejournal.com]

I see a lot of people saying they won't send home the partner dancer but hello? If Jaimie does a usual partner type of solo and Marquis does any of the things that have earned him numerous dance titles over the years, Nigel better not boot him. I will hunt him down. :D

[arabian.livejournal.com]

My fingers are crossed for you (and, uhm, him).